May Luck

Our washer broke and probably won't get fixed for another week. We went old school style, self-service laundromat. Have not done this for a long long time since I got out of school? Boy, the prices has gone up so much since. Each washer cost $2.75, that's like... that's like... 11 quarters!!! haha... i can count!

we terrorized 3 washers. :)

That morning, I woke up very early to go to UP movie premier with Janet. Jimmy had to work that day, so I lucked out. :) Working for Disney has so many perks! Disney Corporation booked the AMC cinema in Burbank for their employees to watch the movie premier UP. All the theaters was playing UP. It was cool. Seatings were based on first come first served. They do it each time for a new Disney Pixar release. It was a great movie, I love it. Unfortunately we didn't get to see it on 3 D. OH well... it's FREE!

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Love in Valencia

I am very very happy. Pho Love has been in Valencia for some years now and still going strong. I don't go there as often as I would love to, mainly because there are too many good restaurants out there and we don't eat out very often like we used to. We have been trying to minimize eating out for 2 main reasons! 1) Save $$ 2) Healthier? lol... funny that i said reason #2. i think mainly reason #1. :)

Anyway, it's nice to know there's a nice vietnamese restaurant within minutes away frm our house to satisfy my strange craving at odd times. Pho Love is tucked in the corner between a game store and a hair salon on Cinema dr. The plaza seems to have turned into an asian plaza, not sure when it turned that way. There are Indian Restaurants, a small korean market place, korean movie rental store and korean (i think) hair salon. Pho Love is small, like a cafe sorta feel. The restaurant is very bright for a change. :) Most restaurants are dark, or have some sort of a dimming yellow light that makes the ambiance warm and romantic. Maybe they just don't want you to be able to see the food you eat clearly. Ha! Don't think i've ever been to a restaurant this bright before. They use white fluorescent light throughout. I feel like anyone who stands or sits close to me can see through me. lol... Everytime the waitress came to us, I feel like she is counting the pores on my face! haha... hey, can't help it that i don't feel secure with my skin. I used to have very very bad acne. Although they are long gone now (thankgod!), I still feel very insecure when people stare at me when we talk especially in a bright room. I always wonder if there is something wrong on my face. Something stuck in between my teeth? Uncleaned eye crust? Booger in my nose? Big red zits on my face? My unplucked eyebrow? etc etc... lol. You get the idea. Yes, I am that insecure. ^.^

The restaurant doesn't have many menu selections, which is fine with me. I usually go there for their pho! My favorite is beef balls & rare steak pho (sorry, I don't know how to appreaciate the funky different body parts in a cow). I was first introduced to Pho when i was in NY. Wasn't that crazy about it then. It has slowly creeped up to the top of my favorite food list over the years.

the picture taken with my new blackberry curve 8900. i love my new phone! John ordered beef on rice instead on vermicelli. John has a funny way of pronouncing pho. He tried so hard to get the accent, and the slang of how it sounds. I give him an A for effort. lol. He said it a zillion times, and still doesn't get it right. When he finally gets it, and if he tries again hours later, it sound all different again. :P And the learning process continues until his tongue gets tired.

Their pho is very good if you don't compare with the one in San Gabriel, Golden Deli. That is by far the best I've had but it's too far frm where i live. I am happy with the quality and the service. Pricing is reasonable for a restaurant in Valencia but of course slightly higher than the ones in Monterey Park. Oh I forgot to mention, it is run by a Korean Family. Yes Korean!

Zuma Beach

We didn't go out of town this memorial weekend (Mon is a public Hol). John had to work on Sat. & Mon. Sucks i know. We missed the fun at Lake Buena Vista with Tim & Jen on Saturday. I went shopping to mend my sorrow.... haha! the best medicine in the world!

On Sunday (john's only day off) we went to Zuma Beach at Malibu with Janet & Jimmy.

We saw lots of dolphins


not sure whose footprints are these, probably mine, i have wide feet. ha!
we walked and we walked along the shoreline

some rock climbing going on. no, not us. we just stood and watched.
remember this beautiful estate? no, probably not. don't think i ever showed a picture of this house before. That's where Janet & Jimmy got married at! Yes, beautiful private estate overlooking the beach.... gorgeous gorgeous view! They re-lived their memory... :)



haha, i was bundled up in my nice comfy beach sweater. it was too cold to strip and sun bath! I fell asleep for about an hour. it's always nice to be able to relax and slow down in life for a change. I love the beach!

We went to see a movie after and missed the pool party at Kevin & Shanelle. :(

Thankfully, on Monday, John got to work from home. At least we got some things done around the house.

confused

Everyone is confused at some point in their life but boy! I sure am confused at most points of my life! I am the most confused person ever!

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Decisions, decisions, decisions.....

I am sure many people can relate to this!

the hottest weekend

... and it's not even summer yet.
John works so much that we hardly get to spend quality time together. So last weekend, I suggested that we go to The Grove and Santa Monica since we haven't been there for awhile. Part of the reason is to escape the heat wave. Last weekend was supposed to be one of those days where the weather in our valley will hit 3 digits. So we decided to go somewhere near the beach to avoid the heat. So I had this day all planned. ;) Here's our fantabuloous journey...

got some gas before we hit the road

First destination was the Farmer's Market for some international food. There was a huge line at the French crepe cafe. We figured it must be good and had our breakfast there.

I got the crepe with banana and hazelnut cholocate, nutella? it was so sweet!!!

john's turkey sandwich. boring.

we then hung out at the grove. Walking around...

taking pictures

and of course we didn't leave empty handed. yes, i had the day all planned. what he didn't know is that shopping is in the agenda. :-D

After that, we headed down to santa monica for cupcakes. We stopped by the ever so popular Yummy Cupcakes. It's a cute little tiny store with lots of cupcakes selection.

mmm..... which one? which one?

we then ended up with 2 cupcakes each. pretty .. pretty

i got red velvet with cream cheese topping. very yummy! i love it!

this is called happy day. basically vanilla with sweet frosting. john's. boring.

After some yummy treats, we did more walking around at 3rd street. Yes, more shopping! :) On the way home, we took the PCH route so we can stop by the Malibu Beach Pier.

our diligent little gps doing its job

A small detour, took us to.... WESTLAKE VILLAGE INN! There was a wedding going on, yep a Sunday wedding. It was over when we got there. The bride and groom were cruising around taking pictures around the hotel.

The newlyweds are cruising around taking pictures as well as us! lol...

ah... almost a yr ago, i was walking down this aisle with my dad.

checking out the gazebo. Looks like there was a wedding the day before. The flowers were wilted. smiley me

and the grumpy me. this is how i normally look like according to john. :X

we goofed around somemore at the place where we pledged our love infront of our families and friends

ppl thought we were crazy

this is a private villa. $1,200 a night. We forgot to take pictures here on our wedding day. :( When we booked this place, we saw wedding pictures taken here. They were gorgeous! There were so many things going on on our wedding day, that we forgot to take pictures here. Oh well... we got to take some now. >.<

We got home later in the evening, just enough sunlight to get our hands on our now dying cactus. I want to go Venice Beach next time!

going green

Trader Joe's is no doubt one of my favorite markets. The whole thing about going green is getting bigger and bigger now. I realized that the least I can do is to get one of those reusable bags since i grocery shop so much. Most grocery stores offer them, I decided to get the one from Trader Joe's (for only 99 cents) cause they look the best to me, personally. The colors are so vibrant. Just make the whole grocery shopping much more fun!!! (yea... who am i kidding here, so much fun grocery shopping!) >.<
John seems to love their apples the most. I still shop at Ralphs for most of my groceries need but TJ is where I go for more adventurous stuff! :-) They offer the most unique food selection.

I still forget to BYOB each time I shop, but with TJ BYOB weekly drawings, I am more likely to remember to take my bag out with me now. :) See how little things like that can help encourage people to go green!

gardening now?

We've been talking about getting plants for our patio ever since we moved in. We went to the nursery and looked at plants but were reluctant to get anything especially since we are both very very new at this. We are both not patient and not very diligent about watering plants. That's why we are very hesitant to buy plants. Last weekend, as usual john went to work on Sat, i hung out with Janet in the morning. We went to the Farmer's Market by her house for some tamales. After some vegetable shopping, we headed on over to her house. I was oohing and aahing at her green lush garden. She cut me some cactus plant and told me that is the easiest plant to start with. Bought new pots & soil and I am ready to get my hands on it ! And of course with John's help with the dirty job. :p Since we do not have ANY gardening tools, he had to use his hands to scoop the soil! yuck! Well, one of us had to do it. heehee...

I am not sure why the pictures won't rotate for me. I am giving up... you know how it looks.... 3 days now, the plants are dying. The color looks different. I am not sure what I did wrong but it really looks like they are dying on me....... :( Maybe gardening is really not my cup of tea and to think cactus is the easiest plant of all!!!

lima de mayo

Our company had a cinco de mayo potluck last Tuesday, May 5th. The catch is, you need to make Mexican dish in honor of the regional holiday in Mexico. I was wrecking my brain trying to think what i should make. I have learned to make tacos and enchiladas cause i love them, but these are hard to prepare for a party. I am not sure how much is enough. So I finally decided on making salsa. I googled googled and googled and finally found the easiest recipe ever. It literally took me about 10-15 min to prepare it. Here's my fruit of labor... haha.

John's company had cinco de mayo potluck as well. So I split this salsa up so we can both bring it to work.

I took a couple pictures of all the food we had that day:

tamales...

so you see... most people cheated. The company catered food in! Thankfully I didn't go overboard with my potluck! :-) There are only a handful of people who actually took the effort to make something!

And here's the story. So far I have not had any luck with my potluck. Last years Christmas potluck, i brought pasta salad. When they were trying to pull all the food from the fridge, my salad dressing fell on the floor. This time, I made sure I arrived early enough to handle my food. I went to the fridge to grab my salsa.... but I couldn't find it anywhere. I looked and looked everywhere... it was nowhere to be found. Some people helped me look for it and still it didn't show up. The party must go on... everyone was getting their food. Disappointed and feeling really strange, I went ahead and had the lunch with everyone else. 15 min later, my co-worker showed up with my salsa. Warm salsa! Apparently, someone had mistakenly took my salsa and microwaved it thinking that was his food. Our containers looked similar. Well, at least it showed up! Such luck with my potluck! Wonder... what else could happen next?

food i ate over the weekend

Last weekend I decided to give my kitchen a break. We had sushi, mexican & italian and they are all my favorite food! We went to Bucca Di Beppo for Italian, Wana Iguana for Mexican and Hibiki for Sushi.

Bucca Di Beppo- I didn't take any photos at Bucca. Probably the noise & the people distracted me. Do not go there if you are looking for a romantic restaurant to spend with your significant other. We (with Tim & Jen) were sandwiched between 2 big parties with kids. We could hardly hear and talk to each other. We were practically screaming at each other. However, the food was great. I always order the same thing from the menu, linguine frutti di mare. It is my all time favorite! Lotsa seafood with spicy red clam sauce! Their food is served in 2 sizes, bucca small and large. Bucca small feeds up to 4 people! Since John doesn't like clams, we ordered 2 separate dishes with plenty leftovers! John ordered pizza angelo, which was really good too. Tim & Jen shared their favorite salad. We didn't get their garlic bread this time cause we all wanted to save room for our entrees. Their garlic bread is the best! If you go to bucca, be sure to order their garlic bread!

Wana Iguana- We took a quick lunch there after the hike. We both were starving and taquitos sounded really good at that time. My company caters frm Wana Iguana all the time for any event they have. I love their food! It's funny how i used to hate mexican food before I met john. Both Janet and I thought that their food smells kinda weird, no offense. Now i am a die hard fan of mexican food. I constantly tried to learn how to make tacos, enchiladas. I got a recipe on how to make guacomole from my co-worker. His guacomole is the best i've had! Spicy! Heh... i love all things spicy. Probably one of the reasons i love mexican food... their food can be very spicy!

Hibiki- I had a 15% coupon lying around & I was craving sushi! They have $19.95 all you can eat sushi which is a pretty good deal. So we called up some friends to go with us so we can eat more! And by more, i mean varieties. We can share the rolls and sushi and appetizers... so we can try a variety of different rolls. They have very strict rules, if one person in the party order an all u can eat, everyone in the party has to order all you can eat to. No A la carte is allowed. Also, you need to finish all the food you ordered or you get a penalty for the leftovers. So the more people in your party, the better off you are. We invited Mike and his family, Tim & Jen and Janet & Jimmy. We had a good time. The food was great. Nothing to complain about... except for the service. The server was kinda rude. It was kinda nice to be able to catch up with our old friend, Mike. Mike's wife and daughter doesn't eat sushi. Thankfully they have many other non sushi stuff, like teriyaki, tempura, ... mm.. i guess that's it. So i guess it wasn't such a good deal for them since everyone in the party has to order all you can eat. We ordered a lot. Here are just some of the food we ate. lobster roll

pork belly for me and Janet!